Hollywood
‘Serena’ finally gets a release date
MUMBAI: Two years after finishing pre-production, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence starrer Serena is finally gearing up for an early 2015 release.
According to media reports, Magnolia Pictures took US distribution rights to the film this week, more than two years after production wrapped up in the Czech Republic. The movie was produced by their sister company 2929 Entertainment.
The movie was filmed back in 2012 before either of Lawrence and Cooper’s other collaborations, Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, were released.
Serena is a depression-era-set drama about newlyweds running a timber business. The pair will play married couple Serena and George Pemberton, who run a powerful timber empire in the North Carolina Mountains in the 1920s.
The movie’s narrative revolves around the emotional turmoil resulting after Lawrence’s titular character discovers she is unable to bear children and takes her anger out on her husband’s illegitimate son.
In US, the movie will first hit VOD on 26 February 2015 which will be followed by a theatrical release on 27 March 2015. But overseas, Serena will premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on 13 October2014. The movie will then be released on 24 October 2014 in UK and will begin rolling out internationally afterwards.
Hollywood
Who is Geeta Gandbhir? The director behind two separate Oscar-nominated films in one historic year
The Emmy-winning filmmaker makes history with dual documentary nominations at this year’s Oscars.
LOS ANGELES: If Hollywood loves a breakout moment, this year it belongs to Geeta Gandbhir. Long respected within documentary circles, Gandbhir has suddenly become a mainstream name after scoring two Oscar nominations in the same season, one for a feature and one for a short. It is a rare feat. It is historic. And it has prompted one big question: who exactly is the filmmaker behind this double triumph?
Before stepping into the director’s chair, Gandbhir built her reputation as a razor-sharp editor. That technical grounding shaped her storytelling style, which is precise, unsentimental and emotionally direct. Her early career included working alongside Spike Lee, an apprenticeship that sharpened both her political lens and cinematic instincts.
Over the years, she accumulated multiple Emmy Awards and a Peabody, quietly becoming one of the most respected nonfiction voices in American television.
Her feature-length nominee, The Perfect Neighbor, released on Netflix, investigates the fatal shooting of Ajike Owens through stark police body-cam footage. The film strips away dramatic embellishment and instead relies on unfiltered visual evidence to confront viewers with uncomfortable truths.
At the same time, her short film The Devil Is Busy, streaming on HBO Max, offers an intimate, ground-level look inside an abortion clinic in Atlanta. Co-directed with Christalyn Hampton, it trades scale for immediacy and delivers impact in under an hour.
The contrast between the two projects, one investigative and expansive, the other intimate and observational, highlights Gandbhir’s range. Yet both share a common thread, which is a focus on lived reality rather than spectacle.
Documentary filmmaking is often seen as awards adjacent and respected but rarely spotlighted. Gandbhir’s dual nomination changes that narrative. It positions her not just as a contender, but as a defining nonfiction voice of her generation.
Whether she takes home one statuette or two, the achievement itself has already reshaped the Oscar conversation and cemented her place in film history.
